


Res Judicata

by manic_intent



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, Blood, Blood Kink, I know... I know..., M/M, Technically no spoilers I think, That vampire AU inspired by the Vatican deleted scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 21:53:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11090682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: Like most of the Excommunicado in the Tribunal Res Judicata, John never asked questions. When he straightened up from Cardinal Fredoli’s ring, he inclined his head, stepping back, his eyes fixed on the floor, already thinking about process. He’d have to get outfitted again. Visit the Apostolic Records—“John.” Fredoli, as always, was gentle. “Do you ever question the Dispensation?”John blinked. He waited for a moment, just in case the question was rhetorical. Fredoli had never said a word to him before other than to confirm the issuance or completion of Penitent Markers. “No,” he said finally.“Do you know how many before you have gone against Gianna D’Antonio?”“Three.”“Two were returned in several parts. One was not returned at all.”





	Res Judicata

**Author's Note:**

> There’s really no reason why this ficbunny appeared in my brain, just as I have no idea why this clip was even filmed  
> https://www.yahoo.com/tv/john-wick-chapter-2-deleted-163043648.html
> 
> Fic takes place right after the deleted scene, which I recommend watching before reading this fic. Don’t worry, it’s short, has no violence, and no dog deaths. No other context required.
> 
> It was also slightly inspired by the other deleted scene, the one where Santino tortures Aurelio to get John's location, but it's not required watching, esp if that kinda thing squicks you https://vimeo.com/218689978

Like most of the Excommunicado in the Tribunal Res Judicata, John never asked questions. When he straightened up from Cardinal Fredoli’s ring, he inclined his head, stepping back, his eyes fixed on the floor, already thinking about process. He’d have to get outfitted again. Visit the Apostolic Records— 

“John.” Fredoli, as always, was gentle. “Do you ever question the Dispensation?” 

John blinked. He waited for a moment, just in case the question was rhetorical. Fredoli had never said a word to him before other than to confirm the issuance or completion of Penitent Markers. “No,” he said finally. 

“Do you know how many before you have gone against Gianna D’Antonio?” 

“Three.”

“Two were returned in several parts. One was not returned at all.” 

John nodded. He had known the Excommunicado who had not been returned: the Violin Player, she had liked to be called. They had not been friends. “We can’t be turned,” John said, wondering if that was what Fredoli was trying to say. “I don’t think she betrayed the Tribunal. She’s probably dead.”

“Yes. Of course,” Fredoli said, his pale face grave now. John had misspoken. “Shut out from Eden, Lilith made monsters in revenge. The loup-garou, the baen-sidhe, the skinchangers, the ghouls, the great serpents… all the things that live in the hungry places of the world. Her curse. And the worst of them, the Lamia.”

John nodded again. He had heard all of this before. 

“They are the bane of the Faithful,” Fredoli continued. “And yet the Faithful who are infected, through no fault of their own, by Lilith’s curse… we still excommunicate them from the flock. Even when they survive it.” He exhaled, and looked for a moment like a tired, shrunken old man, and not the Cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s secret paramilitary. “It is, I think, unfair.” 

John raised his eyebrows. “Edict’s clear. We’re no longer human.” 

“The new Pope doesn’t see it that way. He’s thinking of change. Forgiving the Excommunicado who survived the curse with their reason intact and returned serve the Tribunal, those of you who’d done your time. It means,” Fredoli said quietly, when John still looked blank, “that you will be able to retire. You are the most successful operative in this Tribunal by any measure.” 

Retire. John had never considered it. His life before becoming one of the Excommunicado had been one of misery and war. War had not left his world since, but at least in the spaces between its outbreaks his life was quiet. He ate, kept fit, read and slept. His quarters in the Vatican were small and austere, but comfort was something that had never concerned John, even when he had been human. 

“Think about it,” Fredoli said, with a kindly smile. “You’ve served me for a very long time, John. We’re not heartless.” 

John wasn’t fooled. “But first, Gianna.” That wasn’t mercy. 

“The three of your kind who fought her did so incidentally, when they fell foul of their territories while hunting other prey,” Fredoli said, glancing down at the desk with a grimace. “The D’Antonio clan has existed in Italy for centuries. The brother and the sister. They were too strong to excise, so four hundred years ago, the Pope brokered a Covenant. They do not prey on the Faithful, and we do not issue Penitent Markers against them.” Fredoli coughed. “It is the opinion of the new Pope that we should not broker deals with monsters.” 

The new Pope was a kind man whose righteousness was mated to flint. “Get rid of Gianna and I can retire?” 

“Yes.”

“What about Santino?” 

“He isn’t as dangerous. There are other Excommunicado who will be able to handle him. Especially if his sister is unable to come to his aid.” 

“I understand,” John said, and he did. An impossible task. Break the centuries-old Lamian hold on Italy and close this final chapter of his life in quiet instead of in violence. Excommunicado never survived to an old age. Eventually they grew too slow for their dangerous prey, and attempts at escape always meant their name next on a Penitent Marker. John wasn’t sure if he _wanted_ to retire. He had nothing against his life as it was now. But he supposed that he would like to have the choice. 

“Good hunting,” Fredoli said, and waved him out.

#

John always went to see Aurelio at the very last, because he’d read once that life did actually flash before your eyes before you died, for some people. If so, given how violent his death was likely to be, he’d thought he’d rather rewind to the parts with his friends first rather than later.

“She don’t look like much,” Aurelio said, patting the squat white taxi cab that John was loading his gear into, “but I’ve given her a big refit. She’d go from zero to sixty faster than any Porsche.” 

John nodded. Aurelio liked to talk. “Nice.” 

“Nice? _Nice_? You agents. She’s a work of art is what she is,” Aurelio said, pretending to puff up in indignation. “I rebuilt her from _scratch_. Those doors? They don’t crumple in on impact. She’s got a hospital-grade air filter that can lock down, turn airtight, give you an hour of completely clean air. _And_ she’s electric. Battery’s heavy and under her belly. She don’t flip in a crash.”

“Good for the environment.” John said, with the vagueness of someone who’d never thought much about the environment, save where it was useful as cover. 

“Harry once asked me when I was gonna start installing ‘James Bond Shit’ into my babies,” Aurelio said, his face scrunching up sour. “Fuck him. And also fuck you.” 

“Yeah,” John said, closing up the boot. “Thanks.” 

From the workbench of the underground garage, there was a loud tinkling sound that made John twist sharply, his hand going to the holster at his back. He relaxed. It was only Dom, the bad-tempered, one-eared black cat that lived in the garage, pushing tools off with a long paw. It glanced up at John with unforgiving, yellow eyes, bared its teeth, and slipped off the bench, tail curling as it crawled under another car. 

“He still don’t like you.” Aurelio said, heading over to pick up the mess. 

“That’s his job.” The dogs and cats in the Vatican were its early sentry system, and the most reliable. Technology could be beaten. 

“Eh, you’ve been around long enough. You got a bit of Lamia in you, sure, but most of you’s human.” Aurelio fiddled around with the tools on the bench, then he glanced around the garage. It was quiet: most of his assistants were still at breakfast. “Is it true? You going after Gianna?” 

John nodded. “Got her Marker.” 

“I… look. This ain’t my place to say.” Aurelio was grimacing again. “And. You’re the best, no question about that.” 

“And?”

“You knew Tessie, right? The Violin Player,” Aurelio explained, when John began to shake his head. “The morning when she was heading out, she told me, she had a theory. Excommunicado never get to retire because the Vatican can’t risk that. ‘Cos you guys all infected. They think you might go into remission or something. So they just gonna send you on harder and harder missions as you get older, until you die.” 

“Heard that from her before.” 

“Don’t sound fair, if you ask me.” 

It was John’s turn to look around the garage. Then he leaned against the car, his arms folded. “Probably shouldn’t have said that.” 

“What are they gonna do, get rid of me?” Aurelio sniffed. “My assistants are good, but they ain’t that good. The Tailor, the Sommelier, and me, we got it made. Thing is. Sure. You guys got infected. But you’re the few who got _better_. And. You guys are the really, really few who wanted to do something about it. I think that’s great. Dunno why they got to treat you like lepers. Make you work to get any respect.” 

“That what the Violin Player said?”

“Nope. I didn’t say any of this shit to her. Wish I did, though. Whatever happened to her, rest her soul.”

“I don’t know how she got infected,” John said. The Violin Player was part baen-sidhe: that was why she liked music, she’d told him once. Something about keeping her from screaming all the time. She’d smiled when she’d said it. “Me, I was in the Marines. I was in Bagram. Somehow with the best military tech in the world, we got lost in the hills. Turns out it was some local Lamia, pissed that we’d been blowing up bits of his territory.” This was more talking that John had ever did all at once in a long time. His throat felt scratchy. 

“Afghanistan, huh? Heard there’s a deer species there with vampire fangs. Saw the pics. It was pretty cute.” 

John ignored the attempt to lighten the mood. He had to say this now, before he could not. “We used to do most things at night. Daytime’s hot, lots of snipers. Used to call it the vampire shift.” The memories he had were old and dull, long papered over with more violence. “He killed some of us, I killed him, managed to evac the rest of us back to base.”

“That’s impressive.”

“Not really. I had a lot of explosives. Thing is,” John persisted, lowering his voice. “I know most Excommunicado get infected and sleep it off. One day, two, tops. They wake up a bit changed but okay.” Aurelio nodded slowly. “I didn’t. My squad chained me down after I nearly ate the chaplain. Three weeks they refused to give up on me. Somehow I got over it.” 

“Most people who get infected die. Or become ghouls. A small fraction survives and stays mostly human. An even smaller number turn.” Aurelio was studying him closely now, grim. 

“And then there’s me,” John agreed, and this was the first time he’d said this to anyone voluntarily, but maybe it’d be his last chance. “Mostly Lamia, little bit human.” Almost all the perks of one of the Lamia, none of the weaknesses. “Once I got over it, I stayed around until the end of the tour, then the Vatican got wind of what happened and got involved.” 

“Fredoli knows?”

“Yeah. Only him. Now you.” 

“Thanks? I think.” Aurelio looked a little ill for a moment, pale. Then he set his jaw. “But I don’t know what this has to do with what I was saying.”

“I’m paying it forward,” John said, repeating the words of the chaplain whose name he no longer remembered. “Thanks for everything, Aurelio.”

“Don’t say that.” Aurelio stalked over, prodding John in the shoulder. “You’re coming back. ‘Cos you’re only borrowing that car. So you’re bringing her back.” 

“Yeah,” John said, though he didn’t mean it, and got into the car.

#

Getting to Gianna had been the easy part. On hindsight, it was probably damned obvious that it had been a trap. He’d nearly killed her in her bathing chamber, with a UV grenade and silver bullets, but she’d come at him with silver of her own, which had been enough of a novelty that he’d nearly gotten his throat cut. Gianna had gotten away when some loup-garou had pounced on John when he’d followed her further into the catacombs, and he fought it in a blood-fever, with teeth and silver knives, as it tore what it could from him with its fangs and claws.

The blood-fever always dulled his senses, narrowing his world down to a singular focus. John chased the loup-garou as it tired, hungry, limping and maddened, then there had been a circular room, and men with steel tethers hooked to silver harpoons. Now John knelt, pinned, and everything hurt. 

Eventually there was a sound, something that cut through the blood fever. Someone whistling. It was a tune that John had heard before, a long time ago, executed now with little interest. _Summertime_. He sucked in a slow breath, and tried to pull one arm to his side. Fastened now to the walls, steel tethers groaned, straining against stone. John licked at his mouth, coughed, and spat. Loup-garou blood had never agreed with him. The whistling cut off. 

Someone strolled into John’s peripheral vision. A man with a soft mouth and thick curls, dapper in a three piece pinstripe suit, a charcoal coat draped over his shoulders. Where he walked, the shadows grew darker under his feet. Santino D’Antonio. 

John jerked harder at the tethers, but they held fast as Santino picked his way over, stepping over what he could and ducking under what he couldn’t, until he was standing in front of John, hands clasped before him, his delicate fingers heavy with rings. 

“John Wick.” Santino sounded amused. “The Vatican’s most fearsome hunting hound. I’m surprised that you’re still alive. You Excommunicado can take a lot of damage, but usually, not _this_ much damage. The last one of you who gave us trouble died when we pierced her with sufficient silver.” 

John didn’t bother talking. It was easier to think when something hurt. He just needed to keep testing the tethers, once he was alone. If he could get his legs free, or one arm, that’d be enough. 

“We’re also impressed,” Santino said. “You nearly killed Gianna _and_ her mate. Cassian’s still sleeping things off. Not to mention any number of our ghouls and familiars, while you were brawling with Cassian. So that makes me wonder. Are you _really_ like the others?” He tipped up John’s chin, smiling. 

John cleared his throat. “Bite me. Find out.”

“You’d like that,” Santino said, still smiling, though he dropped his hand. “Curious to know why you’re not dead?” 

“You people like to gloat before you get down to it?”

“Close. As it so happens, thanks to how very successful the Vatican has been at eradicating other Lamia, we’ve managed to expand our territories. Not just across the Continent, but even in America. My sister thinks I should take a mate. One of the Children, of course, whomever’s the strongest. We’ll test them against you. Eventually, you’ll die, but you’d have been useful—” 

John stared up at him. “You wanna find out who’s the strongest?” 

“As I said.” Santino glowered at him, annoyed at the interruption.

“ _I_ am, asshole.” John spat, a hacked glob of blood that got as far as Santino’s perfectly polished shoes. “Bring it on.”

#

In the arena John killed monsters. Some of them he ate afterwards, drinking until the men with the harpoons came, to drag him back to his cell. Some he sniffed and didn’t touch, allowing poisonous blood to discolour the sand. He lost the days. Sometimes the cell had new clothes. Usually it didn’t. The time between monsters began to stretch. John only knew this because they started feeding him. Meat, sometimes, still raw. Bones, that he cracked down and sucked. He wasn’t squeamish. Decades ago, chained to a bed in Afghanistan, John had understood what he now was.

The loup-garou came by. Out of the skin-change, he was a tall man, dark skinned and solemn, head neatly shaved, somehow too large for his suit. He had a hunter’s eyes, and John wondered, briefly, why Gianna D’Antonio had taken one of the loup-garou as her mate. The Lamia didn’t usually get along with the wolf-kin. They stared at each other as John lay on his bunk, not bothering to get up, then finally, the loup-garou—Cassian, that was his name—exhaled. 

“You’ve become a bit of a problem,” Cassian said. John said nothing. If he fought Cassian again, he decided, this time he would win. He would tear out the loup-garou’s throat, but he wouldn’t drink. Loup-garou blood was peppery, and twisted on his tongue. “I told Gianna that she should just dispose of you. Cut your head off with a silver blade, set fire to the rest.” 

John nodded. That would do it for any Lamia, let alone someone who was just part-Lamia. 

“She said no.” Cassian said, when John stayed silent.

“Something about finding her brother a mate.” 

“Yeah.” Cassian pulled a face. “There’s that. Fucked if that’s going to work now. You’ve probably killed anyone interested and scared off the rest. High Table had words. Accused Gianna of trickery, said she’d done it to get rid of her rivals.” 

“Ask them to come and fight me. I’ll take them on. Maybe all of them at once.” John eyed Cassian. “Your wife wasn’t hard to beat.” 

Cassian didn’t take the bait. “You wouldn’t have found her that easy if she’d been trying. Or if you hadn’t had your Vatican toys.” 

“If she wants a rematch, she knows where I am.” Facing Gianna D’Antonio bare-handed wasn’t ideal. But it wasn’t impossible.

“I think your people tried to kill you,” Cassian said. “Suicide by monster. They send you against greater and greater odds until you die. They’ve done it to your kind before. Always have.”

“So?”

“Funny that you're okay with that. Are you that dumb?” 

John shook his head. “Don’t mind. This is simpler.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t have to travel far to kill one of you,” John said, and rolled over on the bunk, closing his eyes. “Bring it on.”

#

John killed a thing for which he had no name, a serpent creature whose blood burned his mouth and scoured the ground. It was very nearly the end of him, its great claws raking open his belly, and things had been close until John had snapped off one of the creature’s horns and then stabbed it through the eye. Then he had drunk from its throat, even though the blood smoked and seared him on the way down, until he was dragged off the body, but that was what John had been waiting for. He hauled one of his jailers close, yanking hard on the tether, and drank until his belly stopped hurting and his throat felt less raw.

This time they took him to a new cell. It was a large, clean room with a reinforced door and an ensuite bathroom with a shower, minimal furniture, no windows. Mildly amazed, John took several showers, just for the sheer novelty of it, shaved his beard short, and cut his hair over the sink with plastic scissors that he found in the cabinet. The wounds across his chest and belly were an ugly pink, already healing, though his throat still felt raw. He curled on the bed naked and went to sleep. 

When he woke up, the door to the cell was open, and Santino was sitting on the edge of the bed, in a sleek purple shirt and charcoal pants, pressed to sharp edges. He smiled when John stared at him. “ _Buongiorno._ ”

“You know,” John said, without getting up, or bothering to cover himself, “people who really wanna get married don’t usually go to this kinda trouble.”

“In the stories they do,” Santino said. He didn’t even smell tense. “Princes vying for the hand of the Princess. Great deeds done in her name. Countries going to war, Trojan horses, that sort of thing. Dragons getting slain.” 

John snorted. “Was that what I just killed?” 

“That would have been one of its names. You were right. You _are_ the strongest. Though we’re not sure why. You’re definitely still part human. We had your DNA tested.” 

“Lucky, I guess.” John could probably kill Santino like this if he tried. Though he’d have to be quick. Santino was confident for a reason. There had to be another trap, somewhere. 

“We’ll like to give you a choice,” Santino said, with a nod at the door. “There are clothes in the wardrobe in your size. The door will stay open. There’s another door at the end of this corridor, one that will lead out into a quiet part of the Catacombs. Eventually, if you keep walking, you’ll come up into Rome.” 

“You cut a deal with the Vatican,” John guessed.

“The Cardinal’s surprisingly fond of you, all things considered.” 

“Is there an option where I get to kill you?” 

“I was getting to that,” Santino said, frowning in mild reproach. “You can walk free, or you could try and kill me. If you manage it, hm, I presume my sister will be very angry, but you could probably make it back to the Vatican before she gets to you. It’s daytime outside. Or, you could stay and attack her, but you won’t have any of your toys, and she won’t be holding back.”

“And if I don’t manage to kill you?” John asked, narrowing his eyes. 

“Well,” Santino said, with a challenging little smirk, “I _am_ still looking for a mate.” 

John lunged. He collided with Santino and they fell off the bed, landing on stone. Santino laughed, an explosive sound that choked into a gasp as John sunk his teeth into his throat, drinking, thirsty. Fingers curled into his hair, and instead of trying to buck him off Santino bit John back, closer to the shoulder, purring. John waited for the inevitable disgust, for Santino to spit and try to writhe free, but when Santino moaned and bit harder—blinking, John tried to pull away, but the fingers in his hair twisted tight and held him down. 

His head ached. Santino’s blood tasted _good_. It was cold but it was rich on his tongue and down his throat and dizzily, John was aware that he was panting, breathing hard, muffling moans against Santino’s throat. This time, when he tried to pull up, Santino let him, grinning, his own lips bloody, still grinning as John kissed him hard on the mouth.

“What,” John said, in between harsh breaths, crouched over Santino, “what the hell did you do?”

“Come now,” Santino said, licking John’s jaw, his mouth. “You hardly have a wide range of tactics. When you’re unarmed, you close in and go for the jugular.”

“Aphrodisiacs?” John asked, doubtful. Drugs had never affected him before, which was a bit of a pain in the ass, because it meant no painkillers. 

“No,” Santino said, and he stroked John’s cheek as John licked at the closing wound on Santino’s throat, chasing the dregs. “The original Lamia was a beautiful queen,” he said, petting John’s hair. “She was one of Zeus’ mistresses, so it was said, and in jealousy, Hera cursed Lamia to devour her own children, those born of her and a man, and those born of her and a God. The first two, born of man, she ate, but the third and the fourth she bade devour her in turn as she devoured them, a blood-ritual that killed her but set her children beyond mortality’s reach. The sister became a wolf, a bringer of death. The brother became a fox.” 

“The Vatican says the Lamia are just one breed of Lilith’s children.” 

“How boring their stories are,” Santino said, kissing John’s cheek with sticky lips, leaving a smear. “What do you believe?” 

“I don’t believe in anything.” John leaned up on his elbows. “So what does the fox do?” 

“Hm, I wonder,” Santino said, his fingertips cold over John’s spine. It wasn’t really a caress. 

“Foxes are tricksters. Scavengers.”

“As you say.”

“I could still kill you like this,” John said, and wasn’t sure why he didn’t. His mind was clear, and this strange suffusing warmth that he felt, this lust— 

Lust. He could feel _lust_ , for the first time since he had been infected. Santino laughed at John’s surprise. “You don’t miss sensation that much when it’s gone. But when it comes back… that’s when you understand what you’ve lost.” Santino kissed John again, on the mouth, and this time his lips were warm, his fingertips hot as they skated down John’s spine to squeeze his ass. 

“The fox brings life?” John tried a guess, unbuttoning Santino’s shirt with clumsy fingers. 

“Nothing so complicated.” Santino scowled as John ripped his shirt open with a sharp jerk, buttons going spinning under the bed. “Watch it. What are you, a child?” 

“Stupid story,” John said, panting as he got Santino’s belt free, then his pants and underwear, Santino kicking off his shoes and socks. “You’re just another kinda vampire. Maybe you got me with something. But once it wears off, I’m still gonna kill you.” 

“Stupid or not, you believed it for a moment,” Santino said, allowing John to haul him up against the bed, his elbows on the sheets, knees on the stone. “That’s the problem with stories, even the boring ones. They spread everywhere, and next thing you know, you have the power to take things away from people. A child’s virginity, someone’s right to love—”

“We’re talking about the Vatican again?” John squeezed Santino’s cock, which was thickening up nicely, and he pushed into the pressure with a laugh. 

“There’s no evil in the world quite like human evil, if only because so many other humans are willing to forgive and forget, given a chance. Take your new boss, for example. Seems like a kind old man. But then he sends you to your death. And he’s helping the old Church spin a new story, one sweet enough even for this cynical age. It’s working. People like him. And so they forget.”

“I don’t believe in stories,” John said. Santino was already slick, his hole loose around John’s fingers. “Somebody was confident.” 

“Confident that you’d be insolent about this,” Santino shot back, though he was laughing again as John pushed in. Even with the prep, it was a gritty slide. It was so good that it hurt, a sundering shade of agony that made John hyper-aware of the cold stone under his knees, the hot clench of Santino’s body, the smell of blood on their mouths. 

No. John wasn’t going to kill Santino at the end. 

“What are you waiting for?” Santino shoved back against John, angling his hips to take John’s cock as deeply as he could. “I’m getting bored.” 

“Don’t feel like you are,” John said, making a fist of his fingers around the base of Santino’s cock and taking a long, lazy pull that had Santino bucking after the pressure, cursing. “Feels like you want this more than I do.” He bit Santino again on the shoulder, but he didn’t drink, twisting instead to open the wound. Santino gasped, jerking in John’s grip, then he purred as John started lapping up the blood that fed out, starting to thrust. 

“You’re warm,” Santino said, arching, trying to shove back against John’s rhythm. “I love that about you mongrels.” 

John sniffed, pulling out, hauling Santino further up the bed when he started to protest. Santino wailed when John shoved back in, a high-pitched animal sound that drove John to bite him again, this time on the back of his neck, growling until Santino shuddered and relaxed, fingertips ripping the sheets. Then Santino laughed again as John nudged forward, cock trapped against the sheets, arching, pressing up into John’s mouth. 

“The fox brings chaos,” John whispered, against Santino’s throat, and Santino grinned at him, wide and vicious. John fucked him hard enough to shake the bed, braced against stone, hand clenched hard in the sheets and on Santino’s shoulder. Chaos was thick in the air, hot on his breath, burning his lungs. It hurt more than the dragon had. His heart hammered in his chest, that last inch of humanity, agonisingly amplified; distantly, John could hear himself groaning, the anguished gasps of someone mortally wounded. Suffocating. 

“Enough,” Santino said, minutes or hours later, John couldn’t tell. He was losing time again, this time gladly. “ _Enough_.” Chaos was burning away, leaving clarity, and John was gulping for breath, blindly grateful, trembling. Overwhelmed, he hadn’t even felt himself come. 

Santino stretched luxuriously over the bed, then pulled away and sat up, twisting to inspect the bites, which were already closing. John lay still, concentrating on catching his breath. At some point, someone had closed the door to the room. 

“We’ll fly to New York,” Santino said. “Tomorrow, I think. Or the day after. Wars to fight. People to see.” 

John pushed himself up, dizzy for a moment before he blinked it away. Santino hummed as John mouthed at his throat, where the pulse should be. His skin was growing cold. “I won’t kill for you,” John said, the words made indistinct by teeth that pressed against his lower lip, thirsty again. 

“You already have,” Santino reminded him, and his mouth pulled into a vulpine smile as John bit down.

**Author's Note:**

> Vampire deer lol (Kashmir musk deer) http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/10012/20141101/vampire-fanged-deer-discovered-in-afghanistan.htm
> 
> Vampire shift http://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-sniper-idUSBRE8560LT20120607
> 
> I think I’ve read/watched too much stuff like Hellsing, Trinity Blood, Vampire the Masquerade, Blade, American Vampire (really good comic!), The Strain, Fledgling (interesting perspective), The Passage… ^^ I actually love vampire fiction, especially when it’s horror and dark fantasy rather than sparkly people (though ymmv).  
> \--  
> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent.tumblr.com


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